
How the Rays proved in May that they can win it all in October
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David Schoenfield, ESPN Senior WriterMay 31, 2023, 07:00 AM ET
Close- Covers MLB for ESPN.com
- Former deputy editor of Page 2
- Been with ESPN.com since 1995
For a long time, I’ve considered the Tampa Bay Rays to be baseball’s little miracle, succeeding in the sport’s toughest division — the American League East — despite low payrolls, low attendance figures and a stadium situation that remains unresolved.
That view is a little unfair, though, because in one sense, the Rays are no different from the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Dodgers or Houston Astros or Atlanta Braves — they expect to contend for a World Series every season.
They have made the playoffs the past four seasons, but there always seems some surprise that they’re doing it again. Perhaps that’s because they turn the roster over rapidly and often rely upon depth more than star power. In 2019, they won 96 games, but their four best players that season (Charlie Morton, Austin Meadows, Willy Adames and Tommy Pham) are long gone. They reached the World Series in 2020, but that was kind of a scrappy team with a great bullpen. The 2021 team hit a lot of home runs and won 100 games even though its two pitchers with the most innings had ERAs over 5.00. Last year’s team snuck in with 86 wins mainly due to the emergence of Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs. Now two of those three are injured — and this still looks like the best Rays team ever, except with two young stars to build around in McClanahan and Wander Franco.
Since 2019, only the Dodgers and Astros have won more games; since 2008, only the Dodgers, Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals. The Rays are not a miracle — they’re an exceptional organization, only one that’s less celebrated.
The national spotlight fell on them after they began the season with 13 consecutive wins and finished April at 23-6 with an incredible plus-103 run differential. That first month put them on an early pace to become one of the greatest teams of all time. There were still skeptics, however, since the Rays dominated a soft schedule and in their two toughest series, against the Toronto Blue Jays and Astros, they dropped four of six games.
May, on the other hand, presented a much more difficult slate of opponents, so we got a better idea of the Rays’ potential greatness. Let’s go back series by series and see what we learned.
The Pirates entered this series nearly as hot as the Rays, with a 20-9 record and as winners of 11 of their past 13 games. The Rays beat them 4-1, 8-1 and 3-2. In the finale, Zach Eflin tossed seven scoreless innings and struck out 10 with no walks — the first time in his career he recorded double-digit strikeouts with no free passes. Eflin was one of the more intriguing free agent signings of the offseason as the Rays gave him a three-year, $40 million contract — not only the largest free agent deal in franchise history but one to a pitcher with a 4.49 career ERA who had pitched just 181 innings over the previous two seasons.
What did the Rays see? A guy who throws strikes — Eflin averaged just 1.5 walks per nine over the 2021-22 seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies. “In an era of power and velocity, he’s an artist,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander said in December when the club signed Eflin. A better defense behind him — certainly better than the ones the Phillies have thrown out there during Eflin’s career — combined with the Rays’ ability to improve a pitcher’s repertoire meant the signing made a lot of sense.
Indeed, Eflin improved to 4-0 after beating the Pirates and is now 7-1 with a 3.17 ERA — allowing just seven walks in 54 innings. Sure enough, the Rays have tweaked things a little bit. He has increased his cutter usage from 15% to 31% and nearly completely ditched his four-seamer, which he threw 16% of the time last year, to stick with his sinker, with the cutter/sinker combo playing successfully off each other. The biggest change, however, might simply be the defense: He had a career .303 batting average allowed on balls in play with the Phillies and it’s at .280 with the Rays.
“Some guys out-stuff you. Some guys out-execute you. He’s got a little bit of a combination of both,” manager Kevin Cash said of Eflin after the win on May 4.
With the sweep of Pittsburgh, the Rays improved to 26-6 — the best 32-game start since the 1984 Detroit Tigers went 27-5.
Lesson learned: They already had one ace in McClanahan. They potentially had a second in Springs, but he went down for the season with Tommy John surgery in April. The Eflin signing now looks not only particularly astute, but necessary.
May 5-7: vs. New York Yankees
OK, so the Pirates had cooled after that hot April. This would be the first real test for the Rays — and it was a terrific series with three one-run games, two of those going the Rays’ way.
The Rays won the first game 5-4 while wearing their old Devil Rays uniforms — the retro look that’s now much more appealing than when the Devil Rays were losing 100 games every season. The go-ahead run scored in the seventh when Yankees left fielder Jake Bauers dropped a catchable fly ball and turned it into a double — and then kicked the ball, allowing Yandy Diaz to score from first base (instant replay overruled the tag play at home, as Diaz was originally called out). While bad Yankees defense lost the game, the Rays won with some good defense of their own. Jose Siri ranged into deep center field to corral the final out of the game, while Josh Lowe earlier made a diving catch in right field with two runners on.
When the Rays acquired Siri last season from the Astros, they knew he could play center field. Outfield defense has long been a Rays trademark, and when longtime center fielder Kevin Kiermaier left as a free agent, Siri was given the chance as the regular. He missed two weeks in April with a hamstring strain, but he’s now hitting .243/.292/.563 with nine home runs. He’s not going to be a high-average or high-OBP guy, but the power and defense make him useful. Lowe, meanwhile, has broken out in his sophomore season, hitting .300/.349/.581 with 11 home runs.
The Yankees won the next game 3-2 with three runs in the eighth off the Tampa Bay bullpen, but the Rays won the finale 8-7 in a game Gerrit Cole started for the Yankees. Christian Bethancourt hit a big three-run homer off Cole in the sixth, the Rays threw out a runner at home in the top of the 10th and then Isaac Paredes singled in the winning run.
Lesson learned: With guys like Siri and Lowe contributing, the Rays’ lineup is deeper than ever and much more powerful than last year’s team, which ranked 11th in the AL with 139 home runs. Through Monday, this year’s team already has 101 home runs — most in the majors — and owns a 136 wRC+ (park-adjusted weighted runs created), which easily leads the majors. In the wild-card era (since 1998), the highest single-season wRC+ belongs to the 2019 Astros at 124.
The Rays won 3-0 behind McClanahan to improve to 29-7, but then lost 4-2 and 2-1. At this point, the Rays were 29-9, on pace for 124 wins — but the Orioles were only 4.5 games back, off to their own blazing start.
Lesson learned: The AL East is going to be absolutely brutal and wonderful all season long.
May 11-14: at New York Yankees
In the first game of the series, Drew Rasmussen pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing just two hits, as the Rays won 8-2. In recent years, no team has been more astute at finding pitchers from other organizations than the Rays, and Rasmussen had been a shining example of this — although his journey to the majors began when the Rays drafted him 31st overall out of Oregon State in 2017. The Rays didn’t sign him due to concerns with his post-draft physical (he had Tommy John surgery as a sophomore), so Rasmussen returned to OSU, where he did indeed undergo a second TJ surgery. The Brewers drafted him in the sixth round in 2018, and he reached the majors as a reliever in 2020. The Rays acquired him early in the 2021 season along with J.P. Feyereisen for Willy Adames and Trevor Richards (in a deal, to be fair, that worked out for both teams).
The Rays eventually moved Rasmussen back into a starting role. He developed a new cutter and had a breakout season in 2022 (11-7, 2.84), and after his gem against the Yankees, he was 4-2 with a 2.62 ERA. Going back to 2021, he was 18-9 in 46 career starts with a 2.63 ERA. While still relatively anonymous, he had become one of the better starters in the league. Then came the crushing news: The day after his start, the Rays placed Rasmussen on the 60-day injured list with a flexor strain in his forearm, announcing that he would be shut down for eight weeks and then would start building up again — assuming all goes well, given that a flexor strain is often a precursor to Tommy John surgery.
This gets us to the dirty little secret with the Rays: As good as they are at finding and developing pitchers, they have trouble keeping them healthy.
They had turned Springs from a journeyman reliever into a potential Cy Young candidate before his injury. In recent years, Tyler Glasnow, Yonny Chirinos, Colin Poche and Jalen Beeks all underwent Tommy John surgery. So did Shane Baz, who is out for all of 2023 while rehabbing. Reliever Andrew Kittredge, an All-Star in 2021, pitched just 20 innings last season and has missed all of 2023 with elbow issues. Colby White was one of the best relievers in the minors in 2021 but has yet to reach the majors after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Brendan McKay had shoulder issues and then underwent Tommy John surgery, which has him sidelined for all of 2023.
With Rasmussen injured and Glasnow out since the start of the season with an oblique strain, the Rays would now have to get through this difficult stretch of May without three-fifths of their projected starting rotation. Throw in a season-ending knee injury to key reliever Garrett Cleavinger and the assumption that the Rays have an endless supply of pitchers that they pluck out of Durham or off the waiver wire — or from some secret underwater lair in the Gulf of Mexico — will be severely tested.
Meanwhile, the Yankees won 5-4 the next night when Anthony Rizzo hit a two-run homer off Jason Adam in the eighth inning and then won the third game 9-8 as New York knocked out McClanahan after four innings and Aaron Judge homered twice. Rays exposed? Hardly. They bounced back with an 8-7 win as Taylor Walls belted a grand slam — yet another player hitting much better than projected. After hitting .172 with eight home runs in 466 plate appearances in 2022, the switch-hitter made some minor mechanical tweaks after visiting a hitting instructor outside the organization. The changes have produced more hard contact and a higher launch angle that has already produced seven home runs and a .488 slugging percentage.
Maybe it’s a surprise that some of these guys are hitting at this level, but it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’ve improved. “They have shown the ability coming up through the minor leagues that they can hit,” Cash said after Walls’ grand slam. “I think we thought it was more a matter of time. It doesn’t always come out of the gate.”
Anyway, the Rays hold on to split the four-game series when Judge flew out to Siri on the warning track to end it. Adam left a first-pitch sweeper over the middle of the plate and hung his head as Judge connected — sure he had just allowed the game-tying home run. “I thought it was 30 rows deep,” Adam said. “But thankfully, [Judge] missed it more than I thought.”
Overall, the Rays played the Yankees seven times in 10 days with six of the games decided by one run — two of the best series we’ll see all season. The Rays went 4-3 — and then came perhaps the most exciting game of the season so far.
Lesson learned: The Rays’ pitching depth will be tested — but if the offense keeps rolling, it might be dominant enough to cover the injuries to the rotation.
On May 16, the Rays beat Justin Verlander, knocking him around for eight hits, two home runs (both by Paredes) and six runs. Then came the game of the year. The Rays led 2-0, the Mets tied it in the bottom of the seventh, the Rays took a 6-3 lead, Francisco Alvarez hit a game-tying three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth off Adam, the Rays scored twice in the 10th and then Pete Alonso won it with a three-run walk-off blast off Pete Fairbanks. Wow.
Therein lies the biggest concern I have about this Rays team: Is this a championship-caliber bullpen? Adam, let go five times in his career, came out of nowhere last season to post a 1.56 ERA and hold batters to a .147 average. He’s got kind of a funky short-arm delivery and isn’t overpowering for a modern closer, relying on a changeup and sweeper. He has been a little more hittable this season with a .200 average and four home runs allowed. Meanwhile, Fairbanks has a 1.26 ERA over the past two seasons — but has pitched just 35 2/3 innings and is once again back on the IL with hip inflammation.
Factor in that the Rays have had to return to using an occasional bullpen arm to open due to all the injuries in the rotation and the bullpen depth is hitting a crisis point: The Rays have already churned through 26 pitchers (not counting two position players who have pitched). Rays relievers lead the majors in innings — yes, even more than the Oakland Athletics — and rank last in strikeout rate (yes, lower than the A’s). We know the Rays’ history of conjuring up good major league relievers out of thin air — Adam and Fairbanks being two examples — but that supposition is being stretched to the limits.
The Mets took the third game to take the series and drop the Rays to 32-13 — still on pace for 115 wins. But the Orioles at this point were still just 3.5 games behind.
Lesson learned: Strong bullpens have been a hallmark of the Rays in recent seasons, but this might be the team’s soft spot in 2023, especially if Fairbanks can’t stay healthy and Adam continues to be homer-prone.
After those intense games against the two New York teams, a more subdued series followed against the Brewers, with the Rays taking two out of three, including a 1-0 victory behind McClanahan. In the Saturday night game, Diaz returned after missing four games and hit his 11th home run. Let’s talk about Diaz, who is second in MLB in wRC+ through Monday, sandwiched between two much more famous hitters in Judge and Yordan Alvarez.
I don’t know if Diaz is the strongest player in the majors, but he’s certainly the most likely to win a Mr. Universe contest. Despite his stature, he has never hit for much power — though he possesses excellent plate discipline and doesn’t strike out much. He hit nine home runs last season in 473 at-bats and his career high is 14 back in the rabbit-ball year of 2019. His issue has been getting the ball in the air enough to take advantage of his strength. His average launch angle so far this season is a career-best 9.3 degrees — still below the MLB average but high enough that his fly ball rate has improved from 19.6% last season to 27% this year. He’s also simply barreling up more balls than he has in the past with a hard-hit rate that ranks in the top 10 in MLB. Add it up and he’s hitting .320/.420/.598 with 12 home runs and nearly as many walks (26) as strikeouts (29).
It’s certainly unusual for a 31-year-old to break out with a career season like this, but Diaz has always had a good approach to build off — and he did hit .296 with a .401 OBP last season. Even though he’s not the fastest guy around, Diaz has been hitting leadoff to take advantage of his on-base ability, a lineup Cash started deploying last season. It’s another example of the Rays thinking outside the box, using a non-conventional slow runner in the leadoff position.
“To see Yandy Díaz come up as the first hitter an opponent team faces is incredible,” Eflin said after the game on May 20. “He’s everything you want in a leadoff hitter.”
Lesson learned: Diaz has been hitting like an MVP candidate — although he might not even be the best MVP candidate on the team. Franco is tied with Freddie Freeman for second in MLB (behind Judge) in FanGraphs WAR among position players and leads in Baseball-Reference WAR. Diaz is eighth. And Randy Arozarena is 10th. The Rays have many weapons.
May 22-25: vs. Toronto Blue Jays
The Rays took three of four from the Jays — although a 20-1 loss cut into the team’s run differential (a category that the Rangers now lead). While Diaz doesn’t run, the Rays have other players who can do that — as witnessed by the seven stolen bases they recorded in a 6-3 win on May 25. The Rays have always loved fast, athletic players, and they’re certainly loving the new rules that benefit teams that steal bases. They lead the majors with 75 steals, 17 more than the No. 2 team, and when they face an especially weak pitcher-catcher combo, they can go wild: two games with seven steals and four others with at least four. Franco leads the team with 20 steals, Walls is a perfect 14-of-14 and Josh Lowe has 13.
So, to sum up: The Rays lead the majors in home runs and stolen bases. And they’re tied with the Reds for the highest percentage of extra bases taken (advancing more than one base on a single or more than two on a double). Oh, and they’re also tied with the Nationals and Royals for the youngest group of position players, averaging 26.9 years of age (weighted for playing time). That gets back to Cash’s comment about the improvement in some of the younger players: It shouldn’t be unexpected. Even Franco is still just 22 years old — and while his bat has been impressive, his defense has also taken a huge step forward, to the point where he looks like a Gold Glove candidate.
Lesson learned: No team can blow off a 20-1 loss like the Rays. And fast players are fun. And 22-year-old shortstops who can hit, run and field are really fun.
May 26-28 vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
The Rays took two out of three. Sunday’s game was an 11-10 affair with Adam getting a two-inning save with four strikeouts, perhaps a sign he’s getting back into his 2022 groove.
Lesson learned: Yeah, the Rays are for real. We’ll throw out the Pirates series and the Rays still ran through a 23-game gauntlet against the Yankees, Orioles, Mets, Blue Jays, Brewers and Dodgers and went 13-10. The pitching depth is a concern, although Glasnow made his first start in this series and struck out eight in 4 1/3 innings. A top three of McClanahan, Glasnow and Eflin is a quality trio, and rookie Taj Bradley has a 42-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in six starts. We’ll see if Rasmussen can make it back after the All-Star break.
The Rays did lose two in a row to the Chicago Cubs, 1-0 on Monday and 2-1 on Tuesday, to drop their overall May record to 16-12. The Orioles are still breathing down their necks, and the Yankees — and Judge — are finally heating up. The Texas Rangers have looked impressive in the AL West, and the Astros are playing well after scuffling in April. But these Rays are absolutely loaded on offense, McClanahan is 8-0 with a 1.97 ERA and Cash certainly seems to usually get the best out of his bullpens.
The Rays are 39-18, on pace for 113 wins, and they proved in May that they’re the best team in baseball as we start the summer.
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From 0-4 to three straight wins, UCLA has found an identity under Tim Skipper
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2 hours agoon
October 21, 2025By
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PASADENA, Calif. — The Rose Bowl stands are filled with blue. No one is sitting down. UCLA players are jumping to the beat of the music on the sideline. The student section is packed, coursing with energy, ready to erupt. The game against Maryland is hanging in the balance, tied at 17 with 40 seconds left. A winning streak is on the line.
The scene is in itself a victory — a rare sight that would have felt impossible just a few weeks ago, when the bleachers at the historic venue had emptied with ease, when the chants that echoed belonged to the opposing team, the scoreboard spelled ridicule and the future at UCLA appeared dire.
The Bruins had tried with all their might to conjure excitement about this football season. They added quarterback Nico Iamaleava from the transfer portal and raved about the kind of team they would be fielding. But after a listless 0-3 start, rock bottom came quickly. Head coach DeShaun Foster was fired. Defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe left. New offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri quickly followed him out the door.
Tim Skipper had been named special assistant to Foster before the season, but after the firing he was suddenly tasked with picking up the pieces.
“Anytime there’s an interim head coach, it’s not a good time,” Skipper told ESPN. “We’re all in uncertainty. Everybody, not just the players. The coaches are in uncertainty. There’s families involved. Their parents are calling like crazy. My parents are calling me. You don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
No matter the topic, Skipper’s accompanying smile flashes with nearly every other word he speaks like a built-in punctuation. It’s not just a mannerism, but also emblematic of his positive approach, one that made him well-suited for the daunting task of reenergizing a winless team without a clear purpose.
“I’m an energy guy. I like juice. I like people that are having fun,” said Skipper, who was Fresno State‘s interim coach last season. “I’m not a doom-and-gloom, it’s-raining-every-day guy. I just am not — I am a person that thinks you dictate how your day was.”
Skipper’s pragmatic stewardship of UCLA has resulted in a dramatic turnaround that feels straight out of a movie script. After a loss against Northwestern in Skipper’s first game, the Bruins have won three straight: a shocking upset over No. 7 Penn State, a dominant win over Michigan State on the road and a hard-fought victory against Maryland on Saturday that featured a game-winning field goal in the final seconds.
The Bruins win the game with a FG 🙌 🙌 @UCLAFootball pic.twitter.com/KQsbUu86L8
— Big Ten Football (@B1Gfootball) October 19, 2025
It was Skipper and UCLA’s coup de grâce — a game won in the margins, with every unit contributing and the style of play mirroring the grind-it-out rhetoric Skipper has preached as he has helped turn this Bruins season from a disaster into a dream.
“Those same guys that were dealing with all this adversity are now over the hump and enjoying coming to work,” Skipper said. “They enjoy football again.”
When Foster was fired, Skipper was given the complex task of being the team’s Band-Aid. Four games in, he has given the program back its heartbeat.
THE DAILY DRIVE Skipper makes down the southbound 405 freeway feels different these days. As he heads from the San Fernando Valley down to Westwood, there is little traffic at this time of the morning. It’s never too early for a head coach — interim or otherwise — to clock in at work.
Through the changes and the increased responsibility, Skipper has tried to maintain a certain level of status quo for himself. Yes, he’s spending a lot more time inside the Wasserman Football Center, but he has remained in his small office near the rest of the staff instead of moving into the much-larger head coach office.
As the noise around the Bruins has grown, Skipper has doubled down on his approach to not go near any coverage or social media reactions regarding him or the team — aside from an inevitable glimpse or two. After the Penn State win, he returned home and was surprised by how much time the nightly college football recap show on TV spent talking about the Bruins’ win.
“It was just shocking. I watch it all the time, and I’ve never been a part of it,” Skipper said. “That stuff starts messing with your head and everything. That’s why I try to avoid it at all costs.”
Consistency has been key to Skipper’s life in coaching since his first job as a defensive backs coach at Western New Mexico in 2001. But once he was placed in charge of this UCLA team, he knew that a kind of transformation was necessary. Before he even attempted to fix anything football-specific, however, Skipper saw two immediate priorities off the field.
“We cleaned the locker room,” Skipper said. “Every time I went to visit another place — whether it’s a college team, NFL team, even high schools and recruiting — the winning teams always had a nice, clean locker room.”
The task was simple and put the onus on the players, while the ultimate purpose of the exercise was to give the Bruins something tangible to both achieve and celebrate.
“The first thing Coach Skip said when he got the interim job is, ‘We got to celebrate the small successes.’ So let’s start with the locker room, let’s clean the locker room,” said tight end Hudson Habermehl. “That’s one win. Let’s celebrate that win. And it just piles on. It’s like a snowball effect.”
For the first two weeks after instituting the new clean locker rule, Skipper would have someone take a picture of the locker room at day’s end to ensure players had followed through and also to remind them of their accomplishment. Now, it has become a habit he no longer has to worry about.
At 0-3 and with their head coach gone, there hadn’t been much the players could say they had accomplished together on the football field. It’s why Skipper’s other first move was to get them all as far away from it as possible. Three days after he had been given the interim tag, Skipper took the entire team bowling.
“I just wanted to get away and do something competitive,” Skipper said. “We started to enjoy being together and seeing that, hey, we have enough here that we can be competitive, and it’s carried over for us.”
Inevitably, the combination of organization and camaraderie started seeping onto the field, where the primary fix was evident: UCLA needed an identity.
“We didn’t even talk about winning games and points and all that. It was talking about getting our style of play,” Skipper said. “We wanted to outhit people. We wanted to strain for every single play. We want to watch the film and say, these dudes play hard. These dudes play physical, they play fast, they play smart. We needed to get the style of play and then let the style of play dictate the scoreboard.”
Skipper not only demanded this style of play change, but crafted the team’s schedule to maximize it and implement it as soon as possible. Sunday was no longer their off day. Instead, Skipper gave the team Monday off before he increased the intensity of Tuesday and Wednesday practices, which are now full pads with live tackling and a physicality that is starting to show itself on Saturdays. “Strain” has become the team slogan, a mantra they both chant postgame and wear on their T-shirts.
“Coach Skip has done an incredible job flipping the culture,” Habermehl said. “[He’s] making sure we’re disciplined with what we do every day, but also when we get on the field, just cut it loose, play freely, have fun.”
Take the Penn State game, for example. Skipper said that leading up to it, they practiced a surprise onside kick, which he used as an incentive. If the team could execute it in practice, he told them, they’d implement it in the game plan. But they would only use it if the Bruins were able to score first and get out to an early lead. Once they scored the first touchdown of the game, they all knew what was coming; the Nittany Lions didn’t. UCLA recovered the kick, keeping the momentum on their side.
“We kind of have nothing to lose,” said defensive lineman Keanu Williams. “It’s like, let’s go out there, let’s have fun, let’s get some film on there, let’s just be together, let’s do this together.”
Skipper will be the first to say that he is still getting used to the job and still learning every day how to manage this team. So far though, he has hit all the right buttons.
After the upset of Penn State, Skipper motivated players by printing out papers that said, “Are you a one-hit wonder?” and putting one on each player’s plane seat on their way to Michigan State. Ahead of Maryland, Skipper pivoted, challenging players by saying that they had now established a standard of play they needed to uphold. He challenged coaches to uphold their professionalism, too, as they dealt with both uncertainty and their own overhaul.
Longtime defensive coach Kevin Coyle, whom Skipper called the “godfather” of defense, was brought in from Syracuse to help lead that unit, which has allowed one touchdown in the past two games. The playcalling joystick on offense was given to 33-year-old Jerry Neuheisel, the former UCLA quarterback, tight ends coach and son of UCLA legend Rick Neuheisel, a former quarterback and head coach for the Bruins himself.
Shell Shocked 🐢💥#4sup pic.twitter.com/vuiHXwyznN
— UCLA Football (@UCLAFootball) October 19, 2025
The lanky, blond wunderkind has stood out because of his appearance as much as the track record he is putting together. In the three games since taking over playcalling, Neuheisel has unlocked the Bruins’ offense, freed up Iamaleava at quarterback and elicited chants of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” from the Rose Bowl crowds in the process.
On Saturday after a pair of fourth-quarter, go-ahead drives, those crowds serenaded Neuheisel again while Skipper quietly relished the victory. As the entire team celebrated the win, which put the Bruins in a tie for third place in the Big Ten, Skipper and Neuheisel found each other and embraced. The unlikely partnership of UCLA’s newfound cult heroes walked toward the tunnel together, their team surrounding them, where even more fans awaited to heap on the praise.
JUST OUTSIDE THE Rose Bowl late Saturday night, awash in the glow of the floodlights that remained on following the game, the Iamaleava family celebrated.
Parents, cousins, siblings, uncles, aunts and grandparents alike — most of them wearing different variations of Iamaleava’s No. 9 jersey — basked in the moment. They took pictures with the stadium’s signature sign, lit in UCLA’s baby blue hue, in the background and hugged each other.
When Iamaleava emerged — ice wrapped around his right knee and with a slight limp after he went down with an injury before returning to lead the game-winning drive — they all surrounded him. One by one, Iamaleava greeted every one of the family members who had come to watch him play.
When UCLA was 0-3, the decision to transfer to Westwood and closer to home had looked to be a faux pas for the Iamaleavas. Now, in the most improbable way, Nico — who has accounted for nine touchdowns during the winning streak — finds himself right at the center of one of the best stories in the sport.
“We were getting a little uptight the first four games. We went out there and let our hair flow,” Iamaleava said after Michigan State. “We’re getting back to having fun.”
Before Skipper took over, UCLA didn’t have official team captains or any kind of leadership council. Skipper wanted to change that, so he had players vote for which four players would join that group and be the captains who would be part of the coin toss on Saturdays. The top vote-getter was Iamaleava.
“I don’t have to say much to Nico. Nico is a natural leader. He takes the messages and he circulates it throughout the team,” Skipper said. “He’ll say what he needs to say, he’ll talk when it’s good, but what I love about him, he’ll talk when it’s bad too.”
When UCLA lost to Northwestern for its fourth straight loss, it was Iamaleava who spoke up, telling players ahead of the Penn State game that if they didn’t want to be part of the team, they should leave. Since then, UCLA has not only won every game, but it also did not lose a single player to the portal, which opened for 30 days after Foster’s firing, nor any healthy players to a redshirt request, which Skipper said is something he is more proud of.
“I didn’t really have a pitch — there was no line, no fluff, no trying to paint this picture that it isn’t,” Skipper said. “I told ’em Tuesday and Wednesday we’re going to grind. Thursdays are going to be mental, Friday is going to be mental and we’re going to have fun on Saturdays. I didn’t talk about money or NIL or any of that. That never came up.”
This fairytale turnaround does not yet change the reality that looms in the distance. The future beyond this season remains, as Skipper said, uncertain.
Before the game, a plane had, for the second home game in a row, flown overhead calling for the firing of athletic director Martin Jarmond, who hired Foster. Jarmond is leading a group of notable UCLA alumni and donors in a coaching search. Whether that quest leads them back to Skipper or someone else remains to be seen.
Even though he is not wanting for the spotlight, Skipper does allow himself to admit his dreams. Long term, he says, he wants to be a head coach, have his own program that he can start “from the bottom and go up to the top.”
“If I’m doing something, I want to do it at the highest level. In this profession, that’s being a head coach, so I want to be able to do that,” Skipper said. “But my immediate goals right now, to be totally honest with you, it’s just to win each day, literally win each day. What’s important now is winning.”
A tougher schedule awaits, beginning with a game at undefeated Indiana on Saturday. But for now, with Skipper at the helm, the Bruins have turned winning into their new normal.
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FSU to make decision on Norvell after season
Published
2 hours agoon
October 21, 2025By
admin
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Andrea AdelsonOct 20, 2025, 10:01 AM ET
Close- ACC reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
- Graduate of the University of Florida.
Amid speculation about Florida State coach Mike Norvell and his job security at the school following a fourth straight loss, athletic director Michael Alford said in a statement Monday that a comprehensive review of the football program will happen when the season ends.
The Seminoles opened the year with a 31-17 win over Alabama and started 3-0 before a Friday night double-overtime loss to Virginia began their four-game slide. Florida State has lost all four games by one score. Going back to last season, Florida State has lost nine straight ACC games.
In the statement, Alford expressed disappointment about the way the season has progressed and said he is “fully committed” to helping Norvell and the team rebound in the coming weeks.
Florida State is on an open date before playing Wake Forest on Nov. 1.
“We rightfully have high expectations in everything we do to represent Florida State in the manner that built our reputation as one of college football’s best programs, cultivating an extraordinary group of supporters nationally and globally,” Alford said. “We embrace those expectations while also sharing the deep disappointment when results on the field are short of that standard.
“As we continue to move forward this season, our comprehensive assessment of the football program will be completed at season’s end. Meanwhile, we are fully committed to helping Coach Norvell and the 2025 Seminoles strongly rebound in the coming weeks.”
If Florida State made a move away from Norvell, the Seminoles would owe him about $54 million in buyout money. All told, including staff salaries, Florida State would have to pay about $72 million if Norvell and his staff are fired.
After going 13-1 and winning the ACC in 2023, Florida State went 2-10 a year ago, and Norvell made staff and personnel changes to try to change the trajectory of the program. He hired Gus Malzahn as offensive coordinator and Tony White as defensive coordinator, and he brought in transfer quarterback Tommy Castellanos to lead the way.
Norvell, in his sixth season with the Seminoles, vowed his team would play with the edge that was missing a year ago, and against Alabama it certainly looked that way as the Seminoles were aggressive and set the tone at the line of scrimmage. But in four ACC losses, the same mistakes that plagued them last year have cropped up, from turnovers to penalties to blown assignments.
The low point came Saturday in a 20-13 loss at Stanford, when the Seminoles had 13 penalties and allowed a backup quarterback who had never thrown a collegiate pass to beat them. Fan discontent has grown, and speculation has swirled about the direction of the program.
Florida State is 5-15 since the 2023 ACC championship game, including an embarrassing loss to Georgia in the Orange Bowl after the Seminoles were left out of the four-team playoff.
Sports
Judge OKs NIL deal for Ohio high school athletes
Published
2 hours agoon
October 21, 2025By
admin
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Associated Press
Oct 20, 2025, 07:48 PM ET
CLEVELAND — An Ohio common pleas judge granted a temporary restraining order on Monday, which would allow high school athletes in the state to enter into deals that profit off their talent.
Franklin County Common Pleas Court Judge Jaiza Page issued her order on Monday, which could allow all students who are part of the 818 schools in the Ohio High School Athletic Association to enter into their own NIL deals.
Ohio is one of six states that has rules in place that don’t allow high school athletes to accept payments for their name, image and likeness. The others are Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Wyoming.
Jasmine Brown, the mother of Jamier Brown, filed the lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 15 in her role as “parent or guardian.” Brown is a junior who attends Wayne High School in Huber Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. He is the top wide receiver prospect in the class of 2027. Brown has verbally committed to Ohio State University, which is in Franklin County.
Brown’s mother and attorneys stated that Brown has already missed out on more than $100,000 in potential NIL deals.
“This is a significant ruling not only for Jamier but high school athletes across the state of Ohio. There are 44 states that allow high school athletes to enjoy that benefit through NIL,” said Luke Fedlam, Brown’s attorney with the Amundsen Davis law firm in Columbus.
OHSAA members decisively voted down an NIL proposal in 2022, 538-254. The OHSAA Board of Directors last month approved language for another NIL proposal that they planned to vote on in May. However, Monday’s ruling is likely to accelerate the timetable.
OHSAA spokesperson Tim Stried said, “the OHSAA anticipated the judge making an initial ruling today on the NIL lawsuit to set the timeline moving forward. The OHSAA is finalizing communications regarding the next steps for our member schools and will send out details on Tuesday.”
Another hearing on a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Dec. 15.
“It’s important for folks to understand high school NIL is different from college NIL,” Fedlam said. “There are guardrails that have been in place that protect the integrity of sport and competition. In college we have seen collectives for NIL to recruit and retain. That does not exist at the high school level. Most states have the regulations that do not allow collectives and how they can transfer and maintain eligibility.”
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